Problem with Neteller

[Skeeve]

Hello,

I write here because of an unpleasant problem with Neteller. In the summer 2007 my Neteller account was suddenly enclosed and I was ask to send them some documents to verify the account. It was the usual procedure I had already done few times since my account was established.

It was very difficult to comunicate with Neteller, because I had to write them twice or more to make them to write me an answer. Seven dayes ago, I was chatting with some person from Neteller at the LiveChat and it seems to be the last conversation I had with them.

I was told that I can't use my account anymore. I wanted to know some reason of this, but they refused to tell me anything. I asked them for a money refund, because I still had my money at the closed account, but the operator only told me that I will get no money and terminated the chat session.

May I ask you what to do know? Regardless of the fact I will not be able to use my Neteller account anymore, I would like to get my money back and also to know any reason of this queer act.

Thank you very much
Sk.

 

[vinylweatherman]

Hello,

I write here because of an unpleasant problem with Neteller. In the summer 2007 my Neteller account was suddenly enclosed and I was ask to send them some documents to verify the account. It was the usual procedure I had already done few times since my account was established.

It was very difficult to comunicate with Neteller, because I had to write them twice or more to make them to write me an answer. Seven dayes ago, I was chatting with some person from Neteller at the LiveChat and it seems to be the last conversation I had with them.

I was told that I can't use my account anymore. I wanted to know some reason of this, but they refused to tell me anything. I asked them for a money refund, because I still had my money at the closed account, but the operator only told me that I will get no money and terminated the chat session.

May I ask you what to do know? Regardless of the fact I will not be able to use my Neteller account anymore, I would like to get my money back and also to know any reason of this queer act.

Thank you very much
Sk.

Complain to the Isle of Man regulators - they are not a casino (they told me), and cannot confiscate funds. As to closing an account, this too can be dealt with by going through the IOM, and it would help if you are resident in an EU country, even a recent addition, as you cannot be unfairly excluded from financial services.

The most likely problem is that Neteller are unable to verify you, however their CS is so crap it is more likely to be a screw-up at their end, not helped by their lack of communication with customers.

I recently had a similar problem, with an "account review".

Apparently, they could not understand what I was using my account for, but it should have been BLOODY OBVIOUS that I was using it to deposit to, and withdraw from, ONLINE CASINOS, as this is the ONLY kind of merchant that Neteller allow to sign up for their merchant services.

If you have been using the account for non-casino related transactions through peer to peer fund transfers, they then cannot verify what the funds are from, and if another customer has made a complaint against you, including one of their merchants, this might explain why your account was originally locked last Summer.

One final possibility is that they have pulled out of serving your particular country, but again this does not entitle them to seize the funds.

There is no interim arbritation facility that sits between Neteller and the IOM regulators, so it would be a case of going straight there after you receive a "final response" on the matter from Neteller, or no response to a request for a final response for a number of weeks.

 

[tristan727]

I never knew how really bad Neteller was, until I referred a friend there.

Two weeks ago his account was suddenly suspended & a demand for docs given again, even though he went through it all before 6 months ago.

Since then they have refused to answer any emails or calls to him, and livechat he says advises of over 30 mins wait time.

Eventually he got through by me calling my 'VIP' number & begging them to speak to him.

Knowing what I know about their customer services, is probably complete nonsense, but apparently it's because he registered as xxxx@gmail.com, when in fact his email is xxxx@googlemail.com. Apparently google had to change it in 2005, due to copyright reasons - but neither my friend nor Neteller noticed until now, as all emails go through regardless of how you spell the email.

You'd think they say 'fair enough, is a well known google thing' and let him change it, yep? Nope, the lady refused to budge, claiming none of his emails ever got through (despite him having previous emails from staff acknowledging his emails). I listened to him asking several times what they could do to resolve this, since he was unable to change his email address - in the end she said to him 'I'm going to hangup' and that was that...his account is still showing as closed, his funds confiscated, and they still won't reply to anything, apart from when I called VIP for him. In fact, he showed me the last ever email from them, where they said they couldn't help him as he hadn't provided his 12 digit acct. no., yet he had clearly stated at the end of the email, 'regards Mr.XXXX Neteller acct no.1234 etc.' - so basically they are playing it so dumb he can't even begin to communicate & resolve the problem with them.

My friend ain't rich & is only a part-time worker/student - he's basically lost a lot of money here & thinks I've put him onto a company which has stolen his money, that I had said to him was almost as safe as a bank - he's extremely distraught.

 

[GaryWatson]

Ive had my account closed for withdrawing from another PC. Live chat gave me the tel no. of their security team and they reopened the account within 10 min. I think the process was just to double check my personal details, they then gave me a call back to confirm my telephone number

 

[DemonUK]

I had just opened my neteller account, and went into it from work rather than home where I opoened it from. The problem which I was unaware of was that my works internet was routed through an IP address registered in Denmark.

Basically as soon as I logged on from 'Denmark' my account was locked by there system. It is designed to assume, because the logon is from a different country, it may be a hacker. It was explained to me and reopened within 20 minutes.

 

[tristan727]

Quite see what you guys are saying, and is very frustrating no doubt. But closing down, confiscating & refusing to answer - all because of googlemail/gmail is a whole new level - what next? Maybe one failed deposit will be enough in the future to close you down? Typing in the password wrong once? I've had to offer/re-assure my friend, that I'd be willing to pay for flights/hotel etc. to go to the IOM with him, to sort all this - park ourselves in the local police station there even, if needs be...that's how guilty I feel about recommending him a place that currently either has, or is only place he can withdraw to from casinos/poker rooms, about a year of his savings...2.5k.

 

[tristan727]

so basically they are playing it so dumb he can't even begin to communicate & resolve the problem with them.

My friend finally got an email today, straight from the investigations dept. at Neteller, a week late from when they promised to get back to him after checking out his docs.

The email was the exact same one as at the start, suspending his acct. & asking for docs. Basically whatever docs they received from him, whatever replies and reviews they gave - all never happened in the world of Neteller.

 

[winbig]

My friend finally got an email today, straight from the investigations dept. at Neteller, a week late from when they promised to get back to him after checking out his docs.

The email was the exact same one as at the start, suspending his acct. & asking for docs. Basically whatever docs they received from him, whatever replies and reviews they gave - all never happened in the world of Neteller.

It's cases like this that actually make me happy that Neteller barred customers from the USA.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not happy about your friend's situation, and really hope he gets his money back!

 

[vinylweatherman]

My friend finally got an email today, straight from the investigations dept. at Neteller, a week late from when they promised to get back to him after checking out his docs.

The email was the exact same one as at the start, suspending his acct. & asking for docs. Basically whatever docs they received from him, whatever replies and reviews they gave - all never happened in the world of Neteller.

If your friend is British, complain to the FSA, they CANNOT "confiscate" money, they can only refuse to offer the service and must return any unused funds once legal title is established. Failure to deal properly with this issue is itself something that can be complained about, whether to the FSA or direct to the IOM.
If they claim not to be receiving Emails, how can they send him a request for documents, which is presumably on the CHANGED domain of "googlemail.com".

Neteller CS has always been bad, and answering Emails is their weakest point. Answering the phone is their second weakest point, although the VIP number SOMETIMES gets answered more quickly, mainly when it doesn't simply go to "standard" support, who tell their VIPs after a 30 minute wait that, since they are VIP's, they have to be put through to "VIP Services", which means joining another queue

I did get my various problems resolved, but it wasn't easy, and I went through the VIP phoneline, as I knew that Email would "take forever".
My worst ever issue took 9 MONTHS to get to the bottom of, and they even ignored a promise made to ANDREW BEVERIDGE of eCogra to have someone get back to me about the issues as I had raised it as a casino related complaint, and Andrew had been scheduled to meet with Neteller just after he started to look into it, and said he would bring it up.
This is the level of incompetence your friend is up against, I wish him the best of luck

PS - It'll be cheaper to go before Easter, when the schools break up, and it becomes the start of "Spring & Summer Holidays" and inflated prices.

If it's a toll free number, just get a speakerphone and leave it on hold for as long as it takes, and as often as it takes, to get through and get things moving.

 

[chuchu59]

So maybe it's about time Bryan had a section on 'rogue e-wallets'.

 

[DemonUK]

Other than the problem I had, which was security related, and I was happy to accept, I have had no problems whatsoever. I opened my account online and then waited for the phone call to confirm everything, no documents either as far as I can remember. Lots of my money has passed in and out of the account and not a problem.

 

[lots0]

I owe Neteller a debt of THANKS... Even if the lesson they taught me cost me several thousand $$$.

It was Neteller that taught me that using any web wallet was not a very smart thing to do.

You know, I transfered hundreds of thousands of dollars with Neteller with very few problems, before I got lied to and ripped off by them...

Not only did Neteller rip me off but they gave my(and every American that did business with them) personal and financial information to several US government agencies, like the Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security and the IRS. Neteller did this even thought they are not a US company and no warrant or court order was ever issued by any US Court for that information.

So you can lay odds that, your money, your personal and financial info are about as safe with Neteller as the same money and information would be with a $20 crack whore.

 

[swestland]

Got a bit of the same problem here! Neteller locked down my VIP account with a balance of around 5.000 euro. I called them and they told me to send in documents, ok fair enough so I did. After that no reply, asking them by email why this is taking so long. No reply, called them again and they told me AGAIN to send in docs.
I did and now its again 2 weeks later with no reply or update. When I read this topic it doesn't give me a good feeling at all! If neteller is not giving my balance back I think I will try this issue with a lawyer because it is a EU company, isnt it?

 

[vinylweatherman]

I get the impression they are reviewing accounts. This means they want up to date documentation, but it seems their notoriously poor CS is the cause of the problems. If documents received were properly dealt with, most of these problems would not arise. It seems that these customers are getting their accounts locked, and THEN being asked for documents. It should work the other way, a request for documents within a timeframe, with the locked account being a consequence of non-compliance. I was able to get them moving through a few phone calls and an Email or three, but even MY experience was far from smooth. After stressing how "urgently" they wanted to deal with this, they took NINE DAYS to confirm receipt and satisfactory verification of my documents. During that 9 days, I HEARD NOTHING, and was close to chasing them up as the 14 days was nearly up, after which my "account priviliges would be restricted" (which is probably legaleze for a "locked account").
Even though I have passed this time, I have been "assured" that they CAN put me through this again, and again, just as they see fit to "review my account".

There is certainly scope to complain at how badly they have been handling this review process, including what looks like losing sensitive documents, as they seem to be asking for them again after they have already been sent - and they said to me "we are not an online casino" when I compared their "service" to the "games" that said online casinos play with ID documents when they want to stall payment.

 

[Agricola]

Here is my (weird) experience with Neteller:

So I opened an account for depositing money to my poker account. I didn't use it very often as I played quite seldom and not very seriously - always with small stakes.

So one day I log in and find out that somebody-definitely NOT me-had used an unknown credit card to transfer $260 on my account. Not once but several times. The amount came to my account and was always deposited to an online poker room (I don't remember which one).

I checked the itemization and found out that this procedure had been taken place for a some time already. The amount came always from the same credit card and was immediately forwarded-by a mysterious intruder-to the poker account.

So the intruder had acquired an access to my account and was using it as a shield for stealing money from somebody's credit card. I naturally informed Neteller and they started an investigation. I was pronounced innocent, which indeed was the case, and my account was closed.

Until now I have no idea, how it was possible for somebody to find out my Neteller user name, account number and secret code. In a worst case scenario I could have been blamed for stealing money or even money laundering.

Neteller offered me a possibility to start a new account but I have to say I just didn't feel safe with Neteller anymore after the episode.

 

[vinylweatherman]

Here is my (weird) experience with Neteller:

So I opened an account for depositing money to my poker account. I didn't use it very often as I played quite seldom and not very seriously - always with small stakes.

So one day I log in and find out that somebody-definitely NOT me-had used an unknown credit card to transfer $260 on my account. Not once but several times. The amount came to my account and was always deposited to an online poker room (I don't remember which one).

I checked the itemization and found out that this procedure had been taken place for a some time already. The amount came always from the same credit card and was immediately forwarded-by a mysterious intruder-to the poker account.

So the intruder had acquired an access to my account and was using it as a shield for stealing money from somebody's credit card. I naturally informed Neteller and they started an investigation. I was pronounced innocent, which indeed was the case, and my account was closed.

Until now I have no idea, how it was possible for somebody to find out my Neteller user name, account number and secret code. In a worst case scenario I could have been blamed for stealing money or even money laundering.

Neteller offered me a possibility to start a new account but I have to say I just didn't feel safe with Neteller anymore after the episode.

There have been many complaints about lack of security at Neteller, and one player even stated that a reply from their CS contained the words "we are not a secure service" as an excuse for what happened in their case.

Clearly, it was posible to use a THIRD PARTY credit card on your account to make deposits, and immediate transfers to the poker room. This should have rung alarm bells, but seemingly no-one heard them at Neteller HQ.

Neteller should have had something in place to prevent deposits coming from a card that does not bear the Neteller account holder's name.

The details could have been gained through a Trojan keylogger or screenscraper on a PC used to access the Neteller account, and this would have been enough to compromise it without you ever having any idea. The thief would probably then have changed the registered Email address to prevent you from being alerted by the credit card confirmations that are sent whenever Neteller receives a transfer in from a credit card.

The thief would have to be using another IP address to access Neteller, and normally this would trigger a security lockout and request to confirm that you are using the account on another PC. There is an extra secret question code needed when phoning Neteller, and this can NOT be stolen by a Trojan as it is not used for normal logins.
Perhaps because the account was rarely used, there was not enough information for the security systems to determine that the account had switched access IP addresses and PCs.

YOUR PC IS PROBABLY STILL COMPROMISED!!!!!

Checking this should be a top priority.

The only way to guarantee freedom from Trojans would be to reformat the hard drive and reinstall everything from scratch, including some security software, or even a hardware firewall, before using the PC online again.

 

[Agricola]

There have been many complaints about lack of security at Neteller, and one player even stated that a reply from their CS contained the words "we are not a secure service" as an excuse for what happened in their case.

Clearly, it was posible to use a THIRD PARTY credit card on your account to make deposits, and immediate transfers to the poker room. This should have rung alarm bells, but seemingly no-one heard them at Neteller HQ.

Neteller should have had something in place to prevent deposits coming from a card that does not bear the Neteller account holder's name.

The details could have been gained through a Trojan keylogger or screenscraper on a PC used to access the Neteller account, and this would have been enough to compromise it without you ever having any idea. The thief would probably then have changed the registered Email address to prevent you from being alerted by the credit card confirmations that are sent whenever Neteller receives a transfer in from a credit card.

The thief would have to be using another IP address to access Neteller, and normally this would trigger a security lockout and request to confirm that you are using the account on another PC. There is an extra secret question code needed when phoning Neteller, and this can NOT be stolen by a Trojan as it is not used for normal logins.
Perhaps because the account was rarely used, there was not enough information for the security systems to determine that the account had switched access IP addresses and PCs.

YOUR PC IS PROBABLY STILL COMPROMISED!!!!!

Checking this should be a top priority.

The only way to guarantee freedom from Trojans would be to reformat the hard drive and reinstall everything from scratch, including some security software, or even a hardware firewall, before using the PC online again.

Thanks for the wise words, vinylweatherman. I as a matter of fact I reinstalled my operating system after the incident. But I still wonder how they got through to my system. I have a hardware firewall and a software one, trustworthy virus protection and a software to track system changes. I run Spybot and Adaware regularly, too.

But I guess one just can't be too careful with online security. Only other possibility I can think of was that they were able to hack into my Gmail account where my Neteller details were sent.

 

[vinylweatherman]

Thanks for the wise words, vinylweatherman. I as a matter of fact I reinstalled my operating system after the incident. But I still wonder how they got through to my system. I have a hardware firewall and a software one, trustworthy virus protection and a software to track system changes. I run Spybot and Adaware regularly, too.

But I guess one just can't be too careful with online security. Only other possibility I can think of was that they were able to hack into my Gmail account where my Neteller details were sent.

It seems your PC was pretty secure, it may be that another source was used to get the details, perhaps including some clever bluffing over the phone by someone with partial details.
Given that they knew what they were doing with the stolen credit card, they probably knew weaknesses in the system.
Gmail is a possibility, if they hacked Gmail, and you had left the details, even in "trash", they could have been retrieved.

Another possibility is someone gained access to your PC from "inside", such as being in your house as a guest and "going fishing" while you were out of the room with it logged on. Not knowing how it was done makes it hard to be sure you are safe from a repeat performance.

The deposits were probably made to a poker room so that the chips could be dumped to another player and withdrawn; this is the reason why poker rooms are so strict about such chip dumping.

(Await newbie post about confiscated winnings due to accusations of "chip dumping")